|
Previous
Next
|
| Common Property Models of Sea Tenure: A Case Study from the Roviana and Vonavona Lagoons, New Georgia, Solomon Islands. |
|
Reference |
| Shankar Aswani, "Common Property Models of Sea Tenure: A Case Study from the Roviana and Vonavona Lagoons, New Georgia, Solomon Islands", Human Ecology, Vol. 27, No. 3, 1999. Link: http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/aswani/ |
|
Introduction to the Institution |
| The Roviana and Vonavona Lagoons in the New Georgia Group, Solomon Islands, extend contiguously over a large section of southwestern New Georgia Island and the elevated lime stone islands of Parara and Kohinggo in the northwest. Rain forests pierced by gardens and coconut plantations cover New Georgia’s mainland littoral fringe and the raised coral islands forming the lagoons. Several thousand people sharing cultural and linguistic affinity live scattered across the barrier islands and the New Georgia mainland. Family units in the Roviana and Vonavona Lagoons generally live in extended compounds including many of their closest relatives. Basic to Roviana social organization is the concept of butubutu, or kindred groups that share consanguine ties. The defining characteristic of a butubutu is its attachment (so to ) to a specific or set of land and sea estates (pepeso). |
|
Rules for Management
of the Institution |
|
(a) Boundary Rules |
| Spacial Boundaries: The Roviana and Vonavona Lagoons in the New Georgia Group, Solomon IslandsSocial Boundaries: Family units in the Roviana and Vonavona Lagoons generally live in extended compounds including many of their closest relatives. Basic to Roviana social organization is the concept of butubutu, or kindred groups that share consanguine ties. The defining characteristic of a butubutu is its attachment (soto) to a specific or set of land and sea estates (pepeso). |
|
(b) Governance
rules |
| Chiefs of the community have custodianship of land and sea territories Chiefs have a high measure of authority over the ocean commons, but the waters proximate to each village are still co supervised by local leaders (palabatu). If a fisherman wants to fish or dive for income at a given spot outside his village , whether he is consanguinially entitled to access the area or not, he is customarily required to ask or inform the local headman. Large-scale commercial activities, however, require the authorization of the polity’s chief and elders. |
|
(c) Resource Allocation |
| Roviana and Vonavona inhabitants access land and sea resources by virtue of their birthrights, spousal affiliation, and location of residence . Roviana land and sea entitlement generally is reckoned by a group’s shared kinship ties to a founding ancestor who, through original occupation, warfare , and/or exchange , settled a given portion of land and/or reef and built shrines as signatures of his occupation and recognition of his ancestors. Individuals usually have binding rights to a certain estate (pepeso) by virtue of their birth to the controlling descent group. The proportion of an individual’s jural strength (tinaqo) over an area depends on the number of times he or she is linked to that lineage. The sea, in contrast, remains a common good shared and exploited by all members of the large sociopolitical enclaves. |
|
Conflict Resolution Mechanism |
| Conflict and land expansionism occurs at two levels: intra- and inter-kindred levels of competition. The former entails competition between siblings to seize their parents’ hinia (private land) by clearing a section of the land and transferring its entitlement, albeit such transaction can sometimes be permanent, and at other times only usufructory. The latter takes place when various descent groups within the larger polity compete to access communal land, particularly primary forest (muqe) under the chief’ s control that has never been cleared or appropriated by any specific descent group. Conflict between siblings within hinia are more prevalent in the Munda area where garden areas are increasingly limited, whereas clearing of virgin forest and coastal mangrove s occurs with more frequency at Kalikoqu and Saikile where there is more available land.In recent years, chiefs and elder affiliate s have laid claim to the timber rights within "private" estates called hinia, resulting in wide spread conflict. |
|
Problems Faced by Institution |
| 1) Unlike their elders, younger fishers view all territorial waters within the ir chiefly district and even beyond as a "public" good supervised and legislated exclusively by chiefs. This creates some regulatory problems within and beyond each polity. 2) Fishers await chiefly regulatory measures before restraining their harvest practices, whereas chiefs, with some exceptions, see no urgency in establishing regulatory measures that could encumber their constituent members.3) Beyond their estates, younger fishers are increasingly exploiting adjacent territorial seas. |
|
Changes in the Institution over time |
| Roviana and Vonavona Lagoon dwellers are no doubt increasingly entangled in global economic networks |
|
Purpose |
| Sea tenure management |
|
Country |
| Solomon Islands |
|
Region |
| The Roviana and Vonavona Lagoons in the New Georgia Group, Solomon Islands, extend contiguously over a large section of southwe stern New Georgia Island and the elevated lime stone islands of Parara and Kohinggo in the northwest |
|
Date Of Publication |
| RS-1999 |
|
|
